The Mind Masters, Part Three

I realized I had no memory of driving to Mason’s building. Apparently the creature had been thinking about something else while I drove, relying on muscle memory and GPS to get us there intact. Now I drove frantically, intent on getting home as fast as I could. Before Rachel’s Master could tell her to leave the apartment, go somewhere, do something that would take her out of my reach.

            I gripped the wheel and managed to avoid accidents and cops as I drove. Mason looked worried at the stop signs I ran and the yellow lights I gunned through, but he kept his mouth shut until I parked in the basement garage. “You pass your driving test on the first try?”

“Sorry. Rachel’s going to be mad enough at me as it is.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Come on.”

We took the elevator up. I hesitated in front of our door, thinking. I wondered if the Master could access her psychic abilities. Would she know automatically that I wasn’t being controlled any more? 

“Act like we’re still possessed,” I told Mason. “She’s psychic.”

He blinked. “This day keeps getting weirder and stranger.”

“Yeah.” I patted my pocket for the stun gun. “Be ready to grab her.”

“You’re her boyfriend. You should grab her.”

“I’m going to Taser her. She’ll be more mad about that.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it.” I unlocked the door.

Rachel was sitting on the sofa as if she hadn’t moved since I’d left. She glanced over her shoulder, saw Mason, and asked in a flat tone, “Who’s this?”

“Clint Mason. He’s got the—” Oh, hell, what did they call themselves? “What I was sent for.”

Rachel stood up. Mason didn’t say anything, as if he didn’t trust his voice not to give us away.

Rachel was wearing the same T-shirt, ripped across the back, and we could see the Master’s antennae rising from behind her neck. She looked at the Tupperware in Mason’s hands. “That’s not a good way to transport them.”

“It’s all I had.” He walked across the living room and set the container down on the table in front of the sofa. “They’re okay. See?”

Rachel frowned. Something was wrong. I had to keep her distracted. “Show her they’re healthy.” 

Mason leaned down to open the container. Rachel stared at me. Her lips started to open. Her fingers curled into a fist.

“Grab her!” I shouted. 

Mason looked at me, then at Rachel, and finally reached out toward Rachel’s arm, but he wasn’t fast enough. Rachel turned and punched him in the stomach, then whirled around, crouching to attack.

Damn it. I pulled the stun gun and darted forward. Rachel dodged me and snapped a kick to my knee. I staggered backward, clutching the stun gun tight in my fingers.

Rachel charged forward, her fingers curled into fists and her eyes on the weapon. I couldn’t let her get it. I held it close to my body and held up an arm to protect my face as she leaped—

—But Mason scrambled and grabbed her ankle as she lunged at me, and she fell, grunting. She rolled onto her shoulder, pushing her body up, and then Mason wrapped his arms around her legs, hauling her back down with a heavy thud. 

I jumped forward and planted a knee on her shoulder, trying to hold her down. She squirmed and struggled, silent, not swearing like she normally would, just gasping heavily as she tried to punch at me and kick her legs free.

I leaned down. The Master’s claws were digging into her back, its antennae shaking as she rocked back and forth. I jammed the stun gun down and pressed the stud, hoping this wouldn’t hurt Rachel. And that she wouldn’t hurt me once I got the thing off her.

The jolt of electricity shot through the Master. Its antennae jerked, and blood started seeping from Rachel’s skin as its stubby legs shook. I pushed the stud again, and Rachel screamed, no longer struggling, her body twitching as the electricity jangled her nerves.

I wrapped my hand around the Master and pulled at it. Its claws were deep, and after a moment I stopped yanking and tried to ease it out more gently so I didn’t leave anything in Rachel’s back or neck. 

Rachel wasn’t fighting anymore. I tossed the stun gun to the side and used both hands to pry the Master off. Mason came up and helped me, and in a moment it was free.

Mason threw it on the floor next to Rachel. He looked at me. “Your girlfriend works out.”

“Yeah.” I rolled her onto her side. “Get some, uh, paper towels. From the kitchen.” I pointed. Blood was dripping down her back, and she’d be mad if it stained our rug. 

Mason came back with a roll, and I wiped her skin as she slowly stopped trembling. I helped her sit up on the floor, leaning back against the sofa, and waited for her to come back to us.

After 30 seconds she blinked, looked up at Mason, then turned back to me. ”Jerk.”

I grinned. “She’s all right.”

Rachel reached a hand out. “Water.”

I got some bottles from the kitchen. She took a long gulp, coughed, then drank more than half of what was left. Setting the bottle down, she looked over at Mason, who was also sitting on the floor. “Hi. I’m Rachel.”

“Clint Mason.” He tapped his bottle on hers. “Pleased to meet you.”

Then she looked at me. “What the hell, Tom?”

“I don’t know.” Now that Rachel was free of the Master’s grip, I realized I had no idea what was going on. “These things—Pelz, the wellness check this morning? He stuck one on me. Then he gave me one to stick on you. Then he called and sent me over to Clint’s place to get more for you to stick on your friends—”

“Yeah, I remember all that. What are they?”

I shook my head. “No idea. Aliens? Demons? Government experiments? They didn’t . . .” I tried to think. “I didn’t get anything from mine about what it was, or what it wanted. Except more victims.”

“Yeah.” She finished her water and tossed the bottle onto the table, next to the Tupperware. “Is that—?”

“More of them. I wanted some to show people or—”

“Whatever. Later.” Rachel stood up, with a little help from me. She looked down at her T-shirt, felt around the back, then sighed and just pulled it off. “I need to clean up.”

Mason turned his head so he wasn’t staring at my girlfriend standing in front of him in her bra. For once I was glad she was wearing a bra.

She threw the shirt at me. “Stop staring. Somebody owes me a new shirt.” She headed for our bedroom.

Mason, embarrassed, nudged the dead Master with the tip of his shoe. “Should I do something with that?”

“I’ll get a plastic bag. You want a beer?”

He nodded. “You got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

 

 

Fifteen minutes later Rachel was in a blouse and fresh jeans, her hair damp from the shower, and we were sitting on the sofa, eating sandwiches while staring at the container of Masters.

            “So what do we do now?” Rachel sipped a beer. “Who do we call? The police? Homeland Security? The X-Files?”

            “What do you remember?” I asked. “When it possessed you?”

            She looked at the floor. “It was like watching a movie. A pretty boring movie. It’s not like I heard a voice telling me to take over the world or anything. I just did stuff without thinking. Or I just sat there.”

            “Same here.” Mason had some whiskey. I keep a bottle for emergencies, and this seemed to count. 

            “We don’t know how many of them there are. If they’re just here in Chicago or everywhere. Or who’s possessed. Did you—” I turned to Rachel. “When I came in, could you read me? Sense that I wasn’t being controlled anymore?”

            She looked into my eyes. “Yeah. I didn’t—it didn’t understand right away. But I knew something was off.”

            “That’s good. If we meet any more, you might be able to warn us.”

            “Is anyone going to believe us?” Mason rubbed his eyes. “I’m not sure I believe us. This is crazy.”

            “They’ll believe those.” Rachel pointed at the container.

            “We need to get them dissected,” Mason said. “Get them to a lab, some scientists—”

            “Wait.” I held up a hand. “Let’s slow down a second. Think about what we know about them. The more we can tell whoever we tell, the faster they can figure out what to do.”

            Rachel sighed, then nodded. “All right. Let me think . . .”

            “Does anyone remember them, you know, talking to you?” I closed my eyes. Then I opened them again. “Anything?”

            “No.” Mason was firm. “I just—did stuff. Without thinking about it.”

            “What kind of stuff?” Rachel asked.

            “Mostly I sat, like you said..” He rubbed his forehead. “I sort of fell asleep with my eyes open. I got some phone calls, like from the guy who told me you were coming over—”

            “Was that Pelz? Kent Pelz?”

            He frowned. “It was Paolo. The maintenance guy who stuck that thing on me.”

            “What happened to it?” Rachel looked suspicious. “Did someone Taser you too?”

            “It just got sick and died. Like I told him. I don’t know what it was.” He leaned back, thinking. “I got a few more calls, but I don’t remember their names. It was a woman who brought the Masters to my place, her name was, uh, Scotty. Blond. Cute. We didn’t talk much.”

            “What else did we do?” I looked at the table in front of the sofa, and saw the empty plastic bread bag. “Rachel, we ate a loaf of bread, right?”

            “Yeah. Just bread. Like it never heard of sandwiches. It just knew we had to eat something.”

            “And drink water. But not a lot.” I remembered feeling thirsty. “Like it doesn’t really know what we need to survive.”

            “Yeah, I just ate whatever was in the fridge, or the cupboards.” Mason grimaced. “A jar of spaghetti sauce, you know? A can of green beans. I didn’t cook anything, just ate whatever was there straight out of the box. Cereal—I finished off all my cereal.” He drank some more whiskey. “I need the bathroom.”

            I leaned over and hugged Rachel, holding her close and tight. She shivered, clutching me back. She’s not very emotional most of the time, so I could tell her experience with the Master had shaken her pretty hard.

            “You okay?” I asked.

            “The Taser hurt.” She shifted her shoulders. “But that thing was worse.”

            “Yeah.” It was weird. There was no pain, no feeling of being trapped, no desire to rage or scream silently—but being controlled by the Master was somehow the most terrifying few hours I’d ever lived through in my life. And terror is my business too much of the time.

            We held each other for a few minutes until Mason returned. He’d stopped in the kitchen for a carton of ice cream and three spoons. “Anyone else? It’s chocolate.”

            Suddenly hungry again, Rachel and I joined him in polishing off the carton, and then I went to fetch some vanilla. We ate until brain freeze threatened, and then I took it back to the kitchen.

            “I wish we could figure out why your Master died.” Rachel crossed her arms. “Did you eat anything funny? Do you have any weird pets? Strange medical conditions? Extremely strong farts?”

            Mason shook his head. “I got diabetes. I smoke some weed. No pets, no girlfriend lately to tell me about my farts. I don’t know, man.”

            This wasn’t getting us anywhere. We were wasting time—not that I had any idea how much time anyone had to stop the Masters. I took a deep breath. “I want to do something stupid.”

            “That figures.” Rachel glared at me.

            I braced myself for a punch. “I want you to put one of those—things—on me.”

            Mason’s eyes went wide. Rachel punched my arm. “Are you crazy?”

            “Maybe.” I hated the thought of giving up control again, but I kept talking. “If we had a better idea of what they are, what they want, it would be easier to fight them. If they’ve got, like a secret base somewhere—”

            “What? We’ll go in ourselves with flamethrowers?” Rachel rolled her eyes. “We need help. You’re just used to doing everything yourself because no one ever believes you about vampires and witches and giant carnivorous plants.”

            “Vampires?” Mason edged away from Rachel. “Plants?” I could see he was wondering whether he’d be safer getting away from us. I didn’t blame him. 

            “Yeah, vampires and killer plants and—other stuff,” I said with a sigh. “I seem to attract all the weird creatures in Chicago wherever I go. It’s a thing.”

            “So is being stupid.” Rachel crossed her arms, ready for a fight. Mason looked uncomfortable, like a dinner party guest watching the hosts getting ready to sling insults and food at each other.

“Look, the more information we have about these things, the better. We don’t know who we can trust.” I took a breath. “Plus—okay, I’m curious. I want to know what’s going on before I bring this to someone else who’ll just take it away from us.”

Mason looked unconvinced, but Rachel just shook her head. “All right. Fine.”

“Good. Clint, there are some gloves in the kitchen. You can—”

“Wait.” Rachel held out a hand. “Okay, we’ll do it, but with me. I’ll be the guinea pig.”

“You?” I was terrified of letting the creature into my head again, but the thought of doing it to Rachel made my heart lurch like a highrise in an earthquake. “No way.” I put a hand on her arm. “I am not letting you—”

“Oh, shut up.” She yanked her arm away. “You’re the detective. You’re good at asking questions. Better than me. And I don’t want to see you—like that.” She shuddered. “Again.”

“You’re a cop?” Mason’s eyes darted between us.

“Private detective. Mostly cheating spouses and employee background checks.”

“And vampires and killer plants,” he said. “Oh, Jesus.”

“He used to be a reporter, too,” Rachel said. “He’s good at asking obnoxious questions.”

We looked at each other, all three of us. Finally I nodded. “All right, I guess. I’ll get the gloves—”

“You should tie me up.” Rachel grinned. “Not in the fun way.”

Mason’s eyebrows rose.

“Yeah.” I felt red in the face. “Okay, I’ll get some stuff. Clint, the gloves are in the kitchen.”

The Mind Masters, Part Four

Ten minutes later we were ready. Rachel sat in a kitchen chair, arms and legs restrained by some cords from the bedroom closet, and Clint wore two pairs of dishwashing gloves to handle the Master.

            “You sure?” I asked. “Are you ready?”

            “Just do it.” Rachel looked up. “No peeking down my shirt, Clint.”

            He pulled at the cords around her wrists. “You guys do this a lot? Got a safe word?”

            “None of your business.” But Rachel grinned. “And yeah, it’s pineapple.”

            “Moving on?” I was worried. I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. And I didn’t want Mason thinking about our sex life while we did this.

            Mason popped open the Tupperware, grimaced, then picked up a Master. Its antennae wiggled in his grip. He pulled back on the collar of Rachel’s blouse, peered down, and slid the Master tail first down her back.

            Rachel bit her lip. Her body jerked as the first few claws jabbed her skin. She grunted, her head shaking as the Master’s antennae probed her neck. She gasped, gritting her teeth, and then her body went slack, as if she’d passed out.

            I waited, Mason’s eyes flicking between me and Rachel. After a minute, Rachel’s head rose and she looked at me. She said nothing.

            “Hello.” I stood in front of her, feeling like an exorcist about to do battle with a demon. Which I’ve done.. “Are you awake?”

            Rachel blinked. “Y-yes.”

            “Do you have a name?”

            The question seemed to puzzle her. “I’m Rachel.” 

            “I mean the thing on Rachel’s back. The creature controlling her. Who are you?”

            More confusion. Her face seemed to twist as she tried to think, and then it relaxed in a smile that creeped me out. “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

            Mason ‘s eyes popped wide. “What the hell?” 

            Rachel laughed. “Sorry. Not a demon. It was the first thing I found in my memory. It was either that or, ‘We are Borg, resistance is futile.’”

            A sense of humor wasn’t something I’d expected. “So you’re not a demon. Do you have a name?”

She cocked her head to think. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you. Language is—strange.”

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“Where are you from?” Mason asked. “Outer space?”

Rachel looked at him. Then back to me. “Tom. Boyfriend. Lover.” She turned to Mason again. “Clint. Stranger. Attractive.”

His eyebrows rose. “Uhh . . .”

“Never mind that.” Poking into Rachel’s mind was bound to make us all uncomfortable. “Answer him—where did you come from?”

“We’ve been here.” She looked around the apartment. “Always. Everywhere. Far away and—right here.”

“What do you want?”

Rachel had to think. “To be. Just—to be.”

Survival. A basic instinct, but—“Can’t you do that without taking control of us?”

She closed her eyes. “Breathing. Food. Reproduction.” She looked up at me. “Can anything exist without it? Instinct. You don’t think. You just—are.”

This wasn’t getting us anywhere. The Master was talking in circles, or it didn’t have the vocabulary to tell me what I wanted. Come on, Tom, Rachel’s expecting you to get something out of this thing. I’m not much for making threats, but I had to do something. I took the stun gun out of my pocket. “Do you care about dying? Not being?”

Rachel stiffened. “Why would you harm us?”

“Because we don’t like being controlled.”

She pulled against the cords. Then she sat back and looked me over. 

“I love you,” Rachel said.

“I love Rachel. Not the thing sitting on her back. I’ll zap you, and you’ll die. I’ve got a box full of you.” I gestured at the Tupperware. “I don’t need this particular one.”

Now she looked nervous. “You’ll—damage me. Her. The brain, the body.”

I was worried about that, but I couldn’t let the thing see any hesitation. “Rachel’s tough. She volunteered—she insisted, remember? Don’t worry about her. Worry about you.”

Rachel stared at me. Then her head dropped forward, and her body shuddered. 

I crouched, wary. “Are you okay?”

Her head rose. She blinked. “T-tom? Tom?”

“What’s going on?”

She leaned back. “Pineapple?” Her voice was a whisper. “Pineapple.”

            Was she—? I hesitated. Maybe the Master was backing off. Or maybe this was a trick.I waved to Mason. “Take a look.”

            He stepped behind the chair and tugged at the collar of her blouse. “Still looks stuck.”

            “Okay.” I swallowed. If I was right, Rachel would understand. If I was wrong, she’d still forgive me—I hoped.      I moved behind her.

            “No,” she murmured. “Please . . .”

            I pressed the stun gun against her shirt. “See you in a minute, Rachel.”

            Her head jerked up. “Wait!”

            I looked at Mason and smiled. “She’d never beg. Rachel would curse like one of the Sopranos.”

            In front of her again, I crossed my arms. “Well?”

            She sighed. “You’re—not easy to understand.”

            “That’s what keeps the relationship spicy. Tell us what’s going on.” I held up the stun gun again. “Or make my day.”

            Mason snorted. Rachel rolled her eyes, as if somewhere inside she got the joke.

            “Where are you from?” I asked. “What do you want?”

            “I told you, we want—to exist. We don’t . . .” Rachel shook her head. “Without a host, we’re nothing. No words, no thoughts. Only instinct.”

“To find a, what—host?”

Rachel nodded. “If we separate, there’s nothing.”

Mason leaned against the table. “What if you’re on, like, a dog? Or a horse?”        

“I don’t know!” Rachel curled a fist, yanking against the cords in frustration. “I’m here, now! That’s all I know! Without—without . . .” She had to stop. “Rachel? That’s me? That’s all I know, it’s all I am. Just—me.” She groaned. “Can I have some water?”

Mason fetched a bottle from the refrigerator and held it to her mouth. Rachel drank too fast, spilling it down her chest, as if she didn’t quite remember how to swallow. I remembered how we’d eaten nothing but a loaf of bread when I was controlled. Maybe they didn’t think about what their host body needed until it got urgent. Mason hadn’t showered in days, he said. 

Maybe we were just disposable vessels to the Masters. Use us until we wore out, then find a new one.

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

Rachel sighed. “We’ve always been here. I mean—here. Somewhere. I don’t know. I think—” She closed her eyes. “I think I slept for a long time. It was dark. Then something changed, and I was—we were—up. Out. We—me—weren’t alone anymore.”

“What happened to the one on me?” Mason stood in front of me. “It just dropped off my back and died. Smelled bad. What went wrong?”

Rachel looked him over. “I don’t know. Something inside your body? Did you feed enough?”

“I ate. I’m not sick or anything. That I know about.”

“I can—feel my body.” She cocked her head, as if exploring inside herself. “It wants water. It’ll need food soon. My leg hurts from something—yoga? I can’t feel the ropes on my wrists and hands. My heart is beating fast, I need to breathe hard. My skin is—sticky.” She looked from Mason to me. “I can smell you. I remember how you taste. I know how you—”

“That’s enough.” I held up a hand. “How much do you know about Rachel? How deep can you see inside her brain?”

She looked down, breathing slowly. When her head came up, she looked directly at me. Into my eyes. “I love you.”

I stared at her, then backed away, out of reach. My own heart was suddenly pounding too. 

Part of me wanted to hit her. It. Slap her, shake her, twist her hair to punish it for probing into Rachel’s thoughts and trying to use them against me. 

I took a deep breath. But another part of me almost felt sorry for the thing. Like a vampire, it hadn’t asked to be what it was. It could only follow its instinct to survive—at any cost. 

Mason was watching me. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.

I stepped toward her again. “I love Rachel. But I can’t let you use her like a parasite or a virus. If I promise not to kill you, will you let her go?”

She looked up at me. Blinked. Tears? I’ve seen Rachel cry only twice since we’ve been together—when her grandmother died, and during the Schitts Creek finale. I didn’t like the idea that this thing was using her emotions to manipulate me. 

“It’s your choice,” I said, hoping I sounded more cold blooded than I felt. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will to protect Rachel. Check her memories and you’ll see.”

She sniffed, glared at me, then slowly nodded. “Just—just a minute.” She closed her eyes. Her shoulders tensed.

The collar of her blouse twitched, and the creature’s antennae poked out. It crawled up her neck, circling her shoulder. 

Mason fumbled with the gloves and then grabbed it, pulling it out of Rachel’s shirt. Its tail swung back and forth as he dropped it into the container, and it scuttled toward the green material as he slammed the lid on, pressing it down until it was fully sealed.

I knelt beside Rachel and started working on the cords. “Rachel? You all right? Rach?”

Her eyes flickered. “Pineapple is a dumb safe word.” 

“We’ll change it.” I patted her arm. “How do you feel?”

“Untie me and I’ll tell you.” She sank back and closed her eyes.

When she was free she stretched and reached around to rub her back. “Am I bleeding? Those stingers hurt.”

“Water?” Mason held out her bottle. “Or whiskey?”

She snatched the bottle and drank. “You didn’t find out much.”

“We know a little more about them.” But she was right. I hadn’t learned anything that would help us fight them.

Rachel smiled. “Good for you, this time I was ready.”

I felt my eyes grow wide. “What do you mean?”

“I could read it. A little.” She looked at Mason. “I’m psychic.”

“Yeah, he told me. You guys make a cute couple.”

“What did you find out?” I asked.

She took another gulp of water. “They’re—connected. They can’t really talk to each other, but they share some kind of identity. They were underground for a long time, and then something happened—there was light, and they could move, and they found us. One or two at a time.”

“Are they from Earth? Are they aliens?”

She scrunched up her face, thinking. “It’s not like I could talk to the thing. They don’t seem to really think on any kind of a conscious level. But I get the feeling they’re from somewhere else. Maybe another dimension or something.”

“What do they want? Do they have a plan for world domination or something?”

Rachel shook her head. “They don’t really think. They just have an instinct to attach themselves to something. People, or whatever’s handy and close.”

“How many are there?” Mason asked. “Lots?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think they have a concept of numbers. Like I said—”

My phone buzzed. The familiar tone sounded strange after the day I was having. I reached for it. “Pelz.”

Rachel frowned. “The guy—”

“He gave me the one I put on you. Quiet.” I took a quick breath, then answered. “Hello.”

“Do you have them?” Pelz’s voice was flat, but with an edge underneath.

“Yes. I’m back.”

“Go to the Silver Blaze. It’s a gathering place of some kind. Lots of people. Go to the back, outside. You’ll meet a woman named Naomi with more of us. You can go inside and take people.”

I got the feeling he’d be suspicious if I asked any questions. “All right.”

He hung up. The time was 7:45.

Rachel looked the Silver Blaze up on her phone. “Dance club. River North neighborhood. Lots of good Yelp reviews. Oops, here’s one that says the drinks are overpriced.” She paused. “Huh. I wonder how alcohol would affect them.”

“Do we call the cops now?” Mason was drinking whiskey again, nervous. “Or someone to help?”

I totally understood his hope for help. I wanted to call somebody too—anyone. But who? I knew some cops who’d worked with me on vampire cases. Maybe they’d believe me about body snatching aliens.

Were the local cops even equipped to deal with this? I didn’t have the number for any government agencies. Who would have jurisdiction? The FBI? Homeland Security? The Men in Black?

“We should stop them from getting more.” Rachel finished her bottle of water. “Grab as many of those things as we can and take them in. They won’t be able to ignore a dozen or more of them.”

She was right. Saving people from getting controlled by the Masters was something we could do right now. Then we could figure out who to contact.

“All right. Get your Taser. I’ll get mine.” I picked up a bottle of water as Rachel stood up. “Clint, you don’t have to come with us. You can go home, or stay here. Or get out of town if you want. That might be a good idea.”

“Yeah.” He set the whiskey down. “But I’m in. I hate these things.”

“I have to change my shirt. Again.” Rachel headed to the bedroom. 

I drank some water. I’d gotten up this morning expecting a calm, boring day of wellness checks and internet searches, followed by an evening of TV and maybe sex. Now? My life was officially out of control. Again.

The Mind Masters, Part Five

Hip-hop music buzzed from the Silver Blaze. Clubbers were already lined up outside the door, eager to get through the bouncers and dance. 

            I’d parked two blocks away. We approached from the other side of the street, keeping our faces forward, not making eye contact with anyone we passed. 

            Rachel and I had our Tasers and pepper spray. Mason had his stun gun, and he was carrying the Masters’ container in a brown paper shopping bag. 

            We stopped and looked across the street. A chain link fence blocked the narrow alley behind the line of waiting would-be partiers. The building next to the Blaze held a shoe store on the ground floor, with apartments above it. 

Down the block another alley headed away from the street. Maybe we could reach the back of the nightclub that way.

            We crossed, walked past the shoe store, and made our way down the alley. I used my phone as a flashlight. The pavement was hard under my feet. 

            We turned, turned again, then stopped and went back to try a different direction. Ten minutes later we rounded the corner of the shoe store building from behind and found our destination.

            The woman was tall, in her 50s, with gray hair, in slacks and a long jacket. Two men were with her, younger, guarding a stack of plastic boxes. Two empty ones lay on the ground, covers tossed aside.

            “Naomi?” I stepped forward, turning off my phone. A light over the EXIT sign behind her illuminated the alley with a yellow glare.

            She looked me over. The door behind her opened, and a young woman in a black leather miniskirt and high heels emerged. “More.” She slid a big purse from her shoulder and held it wide.

            One of the men, Hispanic with a beard, opened a box, pulled out a Master, and dropped it into her purse. Without a word she spun around and headed through the door, back into the nightclub.

            “The bathrooms are best,” the bearded man told me. 

His partner turned. Pelz. He reached into the box for a Master and held it out to me.

            I glanced at Rachel, then looked at Naomi. “How many so far?”

            “I don’t know.” She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and looked at an expensive wristwatch. “We’ve been here an hour. Get going.”

            We had a plan. Not a great plan, but better than nothing, I hoped. I saw Rachel reach for her Taser. I had my hand in my pocket around mine. Mason stood back, hands at his sides, ready to jump in if we needed help.

            But before we could spring into action, a sudden shout burst from the sidewalk in front of the club. 

            Through the fence, the line was breaking up. A young guy lifted his hands and flipped his middle fingers into the air. His girlfriend pulled on his arm, yelling at him. One group of friends headed across the street, talking loudly with angry gestures. A man in black jeans and a vest just stood motionless on the sidewalk, looking confused and frozen. 

            “What is it?” Naomi asked.

            The door opened again. The woman in the miniskirt stumbled out, almost tripping in her high heels. “They closed the front door. There are people looking for us.”

Out front a man ran through the crowd, pushing people away, waving his arms desperately, trying to flee like a mugger with a cop behind him.

            “That’s Amir,” Pelz said.

            “We should leave.” Naomi pointed to the boxes. “Pick them up and get to the car.”

            “Where to?” I asked. Knowing where they were storing the Masters could be useful.

            “The source. Come on.” She picked up a box.

            The source? That sounded important. I looked at Rachel. She nodded.

            Mason stared at me. Would he give us all away? It wasn’t fair to expect him to go along with this change of plan, especially since I could recognize how suicidal it seemed. Go with a bunch of controlled humans somewhere with a bunch of Masters looking for hosts? Running might be smarter—if he could run fast enough.

            Instead he shrugged and helped Pelz with the boxes.

The Mind Masters, Part Six

We crammed into a van between stacks of boxes—plastic, metal, thick cardboard—and roared off down the alley and out onto the street. Naomi drove too fast for me to keep track of where we were going. We rocked back and forth with each sharp turn and sudden slam of the brakes.

            Rachel was stuffed right next to me. Mason sat next to Pelz, trying to keep his face in neutral, but I could see his eyes twitch nervously as he watched us, looking for some kind of hint that I knew what I was doing.

            I didn’t. 

            Rachel leaned close to me. “What’s the plan, 007?”

            “Get in, call the cops. Tell them it’s terrorists.”

            Her head tilted in a slight nod. “You’ve had worse plans.”

            They hadn’t patted us down or taken our phones. Apparently they just assumed that anyone who showed up at the Silver Blaze was on their side. Maybe the Masters hadn’t learned much about basic operational security. That’s what they call it in spy novels, I think.

            We were going to the source. That’s what Naomi had said. Maybe the spot where all the Masters were gathered? I hoped so. 

            Although the thought of being surrounded by an army of Masters didn’t ease my nerves.

            “What about Clint?”

            I looked at him and tried to give a reassuring nod. He stared back without expression.

            After 20 minutes Naomi yanked the wheel, and the van started hurtling downward until she hit the brakes, throwing me against Rachel. We came to a stop, and doors started opening.

            Pelz grabbed a cardboard box and passed it to someone outside. Mason took two plastic storage crates, water sloshing inside, and stepped out of the van. Rachel and I each grabbed some boxes.

            Outside the van, we found ourselves in what looked like an underground parking garage, still under construction. Looking up, I could see stars through a network of girders and cables stretching high into the sky. Looking around, I saw that only about half the basement was paved, the rest of it still open ground, with mounds of dirt piled across the unfinished section.

            Metal lockers lined one concrete wall, and a small plywood shack stood off to one side. On the other end, next to what looked like a deep pit, stood a series of large transparent tanks like you’d see at the aquarium.

In about a foot of dirty water, in with clumps of the familiar green moss, sat dozens of Masters. Maybe hundreds, crowded together, squirming, antennae darting around, crawling over each other or burying their heads into the mass of green material.

Mason carried his two crates over to the nearest tank and opened one. Watching Pelz, he reached down and picked up two Masters, holding them away from his body. Pelz dropped a Master into the tank, and Mason copied him, letting the Masters slip from his fingers into the scummy pool.

Rachel and I carried our boxes over and started releasing the Masters inside into the tanks. One of mine dropped and rolled over, not moving. The other one scuttled away from it, leaving it to lie by itself in the shallow water. 

A man next to me reached down and pulled the motionless Master out of the water. I could smell it—a foul odor, like fish after a week in the garbage. He held it close to his face, peering into its tiny eyes, then carried it over to a tall metal can and dropped it in.

It had died, apparently. Should I have known that? I didn’t waste time worrying about it—I just picked up another Master and deposited it into the tank.

We worked silently until all the Masters were in their tank. A few went into the garbage, but most joined their siblings in the water, wandering or eating or settling down to sleep, if that’s what they did.

Pelz sat down on the concrete, legs crossed, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes. The others sank down too, sitting or lying down, closing their eyes or just staring into nothing.

Other people sat on the floor too, motionless and silent. Men, women, teens, seniors, all races—their faces blank, their eyes dead.

I sat next to Rachel. Mason was with the group from the van, breathing slowly, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. 

How long could we pull this off? I looked around. The only exit I could see was the ramp the van had rolled down. Was it shut tight at the top?

Other vans and cars were scattered across the garage. I wondered how organized this operation was. Did the Masters have a grand strategy for world domination? Or were they just randomly trying to infect as many people as they could?

I risked a glance at Rachel, but she kept her eyes focused on the ground in front of her. I slowly patted my pocket from my phone. One quick text—

Naomi stood over me. “You.” She pointed toward the shack. “Come.”

Now what? I forced myself not to look at Rachel as I stood. I followed Naomi, fighting to breathe normally and keep my heart from hammering too loudly with each footstep.

Inside the shack Naomi dropped into an office swivel chair next to a folding card table. It was empty except for a small desk lamp running on a battery, a copy of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, and a handgun. Small but enough to jolt my anxiety levels even higher than before.

“Your name,” she said. 

“Tom. Tom Jurgen.”

She leaned forward. “You aren’t part of us, are you, Tom Jurgen?” 

Oh hell. “W-why do you think that?”

Naomi smiled. “It’s not hard. The two of you.”

Two of you. She’d caught Rachel and me looking at each other. Maybe she hadn’t noticed Mason yet. I hoped.

I glanced around the shack. No windows. The plywood wasn’t very thick, and there was only a small, flimsy bolt on the door to keep people out. No lock to keep me in. Just a dozen or more controlled humans outside who could haul me down in two seconds if I tried to run. 

My only option was to get Naomi talking. Find out as much about the Masters as I could. In case I got a chance to use any of it in the near future.

So I leaned back against the plywood wall and crossed my arms, trying my best to look like James Bond, trapped by the evil villain but not showing any sweat. 

“Okay, you’ve got me.” I shrugged. Sweating. “So now what? You slap one of those things on my back and send me out to infect more people?”

Naomi sat forward, arms on the table. Up close, she looked tired. Her gray hair was tangled, and black bags hung under her eyes. Her clothes looked like she’d been sleeping in them for days.

She kept one hand near the pistol. “What are you doing here?”

I was asking myself that too right now. “I wanted to see the source. That’s what you called it. Is this your base? Underneath a half-built condo building or something?” 

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Who else knows you’re here? Did you tell anyone?”

“No. I wish I had. Tell me, what are you? What are you doing here?” I was asking questions to keep her off balance. Keep her focused on me, so she wouldn’t think about Rachel. 

Plus, I really did want to learn more about the Masters. It’s my reporter’s instinct. “Where are you from? Another planet? Another dimension?”

“So many questions.” Naomi rubbed her eyes. “We’re here. Maybe we’ve always been here, wherever this—place is.” She glanced across the walls of the shack, as if she didn’t mean where we were right now, but where in the universe she’d ended up. “We slept for . . . centuries. Maybe millennia? I don’t know.” She played with a strand of hair. “Then there was the light. Above, everywhere. We went looking for hosts. We found some, but the first few hosts died.” 

She cocked her head at me. “But we found hosts who stayed alive. We started to understand them. You.” She peered into my eyes. “Your minds are—deep. So many thoughts. Memories. Instincts. Eating, elimination. Sleep. Sex.” Her lip curled in disgust. “The need to talk, to share everything. Like I’m doing now.” She gave a quiet, bitter laugh, then clenched a fist. “Shutting it off, sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes . . .” 

Naomi sighed, breathing shallowly. “We do what we have to do to be alive.”

“You need hosts to survive?”

“We need hosts to exist.” She swiveled in her chair. “I lost one host. I forgot to give him food and water. He fell over and went to sleep. Not waking up. Between hosts, I was—gone. Just instinct. No idea how much time there was. Then I was here.” She touched her face. “This one is different. Different thoughts, different memories. New needs that I don’t understand yet. When she’s done, I’ll find something else and learn more. Become more.”

“You hunt people to control them.”

Naomi smiled. “We spread. It’s what we are. It’s all we know to do.”

“You’re hurting us. The host who died because you didn’t feed him? That’s your doing.” I pointed at her. “This one will die too if you don’t take care of her.”

“There are more of you.” She waved an arm across the room. “Everywhere.”

“We don’t like being controlled.” I remembered the Master we’d questioned. It didn’t seem to have any idea what it was doing to Rachel, or anyone. Maybe they didn’t understand. “Look inside Naomi’s thoughts. She doesn’t want you in there.”

“It doesn’t matter. You have your own needs. Instincts. You can’t control them. Our instinct is to join with you.” Naomi gazed into my eyes. “You just have to accept it.” 

The door opened. It was the woman in the miniskirt. “Are you ready?” A Master was hanging from one hand. 

“Yeah.” Naomi reached out for the pistol and pointed it at me. “Come on in, Annette.”

I tensed. I still had my stun gun, and some pepper spray. They hadn’t thought to search us. Maybe they were still figuring out basic security. 

But there were dozens of them out there. All of them perfectly willing to hurt me. And Rachel.

Then I realized that the minute the Master had me, I’d tell them about Mason. And if they knew about me, they were probably already watching Rachel.

Shit. I had to give them a chance to get away somehow.

“Just relax, Tom.” Naomi held the pistol loosely in her hand, not really ready to shoot me. “You’ll be fine in just a minute.”

No. I couldn’t just sit still while Annette walked toward me. Could I get to my pepper spray before Naomi shot me?

Then, before I could make my desperate move, Rachel burst through the door. Mason was right behind her

She crashed into Annette, pushing her to the floor. The Master slipped through her fingers, scuttling toward the shadows. Rachel stomped on Annette’s wrist as she tried to grab it again. “You okay?” she asked me.

I pointed at Naomi. “She has a gun—” 

Too late. The pistol cracked. Mason yelped, tumbling to the ground, but then he reared up and flipped the table. Naomi shoved her chair back as the lamp shattered, leaving us in darkness and shadows cast by the light outside the door.

Grabbing at my pockets, I jumped forward. I stumbled over Annette’s scrambling body, but pulled myself up and blasted the pepper spray toward Naomi before she could fire her pistol again.

Naomi shrieked, twisting in her chair, and dropped the handgun to claw at her eyes. I sprang toward her, reaching down to snatch it up, and pushed her chair over, sending her to the ground hard. “Get the door! Clint, are you all right?”

Mason was holding his shoulder, grunting. Blood dripped through his fingers. “I don’t—think—it’s bad.” He dropped to his knees. “Okay, maybe it’s bad.”

Rachel scrambled to her feet and slammed the door, throwing the bolt. “This won’t hold long.” She shook her head. “We’re screwed.”

“Call somebody. You still got your phone?” I looked at the pistol in my hand. I own a handgun, and I’ve fired them before. I could handle this one.

But I really didn’t want to shoot anybody. Especially since everyone outside was being controlled by Masters. They weren’t responsible for anything they were doing.

“I texted Sharpe.” Rachel held up her phone in her free hand. “They weren’t watching me, even after you left. Stay down!” She kicked Annette in the shoulder. “I told her we’re in a hostage situation with other civilians. Hopefully they won’t come in shooting.”

Anita Sharpe was a detective with the Chicago Police. We’d worked together on vampire cases, so she knew I wasn’t crazy. Well, too crazy. But she likes Rachel more than me, so she’d believe her. 

“I’ll call.” I found Sharpe’s number on my phone.

“Jurgen, what the hell?” It was her standard greeting, but she sounded more urgent this time. “I got this text from Rachel—”

“We’re being invaded by mind controlling parasites.” Someone started pounding on the door. Rachel braced her legs and leaned her shoulder against it, but it wouldn’t hold up more than a few minutes. 

“Of course you are.” Sharpe sounded as if she were already running. “Good thing I heard from Rachel first. I got your location from her phone’s GPS. I don’t know what I’m going to tell them—”

The pounding on the door got louder and harder. Rachel grunted, her feet sliding as she tried to hold it shut.

“We’ve got wounded,” I told Sharpe. “Hurry.”

I joined Rachel at the door. The walls began to shake as the people outside tried pounding at the plywood.

Mason rolled over and pushed himself up. “I think—she just got my shirt, mostly.” He wiped his hand on his jeans. “You got the cavalry coming?”

“Get out!” Naomi’s shout was almost as loud as the pounding from outside. “Get away! They’ve got the police coming! Take as many as you can! Keep spreading!”

She was still in her overturned chair, glaring at us, tears streaming from her eyes from the pepper spray.

“Should we shut her up?” Mason took a step toward her. His left arm hung limp, but his other arm looked healthy enough to slap her into silence.

“Wait.” Yeah, if the Masters escaped, they’d go out and possess more people. Tracking them all down would be hard. Maybe impossible.

But if they were running, trying to save themselves, they wouldn’t crash in here and take us. Maybe I was being a coward, but right now I was okay with the trade-off. 

“Let them go.” I leaned against the door next to Rachel, but already the pressure was slacking off. “As long as they leave a few behind we can show the cops.” 

My phone buzzed. Pelz.

I showed the name to Rachel. Her eyebrows rose as it buzzed a second time. “Answer it.”

“Yeah?” I tried to peer through the crack in the door, but all I could make out was scattered, shadowy movement back and forth across the garage.

“You can’t stop us.” His voice was flat. “We’ll spread. We’ll keep spreading. There’ll be too many for you to kill us all.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that.” I shoved Naomi’s little pistol into my jacket. “We can figure something out between us. You just can’t keep using people and discarding them like cheap toys. We don’t like it. But there doesn’t have to be a war.”

Would the thing listen? Did they have any way to share information without hosts? And was I just being naive? If they looked into human history, they wouldn’t find a lot of reason to believe in our capacity for tolerance.

“We are what we are,” Pelz said. “You can’t change that. Goodbye.”

“Wait!” This whole thing had started with Pelz. I couldn’t just let him go without asking one last question.

“Well?”

I took a breath. “What should I tell your family?”

For a long moment I thought the Master wasn’t going to let him answer. Finally he said, “Tell them I’m fine. I’ll see them. Someday.”

“I hope so.”

Pelz hung up. I looked at Rachel and shrugged. “Maybe he’ll listen.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Annette sat up with a groan, rubbing her head. “What—uh, what happened? Oh, God.” She looked at Mason, then Rachel and me. “Are they gone?”

A Master skittered away from her, burrowing under the darkness in the corner where the other one had fled.

No one was shoving at the door. Rachel put her ear to the crack, then opened the bolt. 

I peeked out. The half-built parking garage was empty. About half the boxes were gone, but at least a dozen or more Masters had been abandoned in the big tanks. Some, on the ground, were slowly making their way toward the shadows. Some had been stomped on and died.

Then a loud bang erupted from the far side of the garage. “Police! Freeze! Hands where we can see them!”

I looked at Rachel. “The cavalry has arrived.”

She sighed. “Yay. Now what?”

The Mind Masters, Part Seven

We got home at 1:30 a.m. “Beer?” I asked.

            “Bed.” Rachel staggered to the bedroom. I was tired too, but too wired to sleep just yet. So I opened a beer and collapsed on the couch.

            When the cops came in, a handful of people free of their Masters were wandering around, dazed, unable to answer any questions but too confused to put up any kind of resistance that might have gotten them shot. 

I didn’t know how many Masters had been carried away, free to clamp onto more humans. I was too busy talking to the SWAT team to think about it.

            I told them everything about the Masters that I could. Fortunately, Annette and the other people were there to back me up—what the Masters were, what they did to people. The cops didn’t believe any of us at first, but a look at the tanks convinced them we weren’t just high on bad meth and hallucinating about body snatchers.

Naomi’s Master had stayed with her, and although she didn’t say much, the cops could see that something was off about her. Eventually a female cop checked her back, saw the Master attached to her skin, and immediately threw up. That’s when the cops called in the FBI.

            More cops showed up, and some FBI, and some other people who didn’t tell us where they worked. We told our stories again and again, and eventually someone told the police to cut us loose after ordering us not to talk to the media. They didn’t go into specifics about what would happen if we called Action News, but the threat was clear.

A cop drove us back to the Silver Blaze to get my car. “There was something here tonight, I don’t know,” he told us as he parked. “Got a call about some weird kind of attack. Guess I’ll hear about it tomorrow. Or not. Here you go.”

            I thanked him for the ride. He just grunted and pulled away. 

            We drove Clint Mason home. “Thanks for your help,” I said as he got out of the car. “Sorry you almost got shot.”

            Naomi’s bullet had grazed his shoulder. Paramedics had bandaged his arm, but he insisted he was good to go home.

            He chuckled. “Just hope I can get my job back. I haven’t been there in a few days. I’ll just say I had COVID, I guess. You guys take care.” He slammed the door and waved at Rachel before turning to walk into his building.

            Now, home, alone in the silence, I tried to sort out my head. The Master was gone, but I still felt it in my mind, like a phantom limb trying to grab onto something solid. I sipped my beer, trying to get rid of the feeling, or at least convince myself that the creature hadn’t left something inside me.

            I dozed. A dream of the Master scuttling toward me woke me up with a jerk. Even though I was exhausted, physically and mentally, I was going to have trouble sleeping tonight.

            Rachel came out of the bedroom in a T-shirt, her hair damp. “I’ll take that beer now.”

            I got her one and sat next to her. We held each other silently for a long time.

            “It was weird.” Her head was on my shoulder.

            “Yeah.”

She sat up and looked at me. “I mean, when I said I love you. When it said ‘I love you.’ Like I was talking about someone else, not me.”

            “Uh-huh.” I held her hand.

            Rachel shook her head. “It didn’t understand. Like it was a different language. Or like I was hearing something completely new, something alien. Familiar, but—confusing. And scary. It was scared.”

            “Love is pretty scary.”

            “True that.” She kissed my cheek.

            My phone buzzed. I groaned and looked at the screen. Then I groaned again.My clients. Pelz’s parents. 

“I should answer this.” With a sigh, I pressed a button. ”Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Mr Jurgen?” It was Pelz’s father. “Sorry to call you so late. We just, uh, heard from Kent.”

            I sat up. “Yes? That’s good. I, uh, talked to him today. I’m sorry, it’s been kind of a long day. I didn’t have a chance to call you.”

            “That’s okay. He said you checked on him. He says he’s fine, he has to go away for a while. For work. But he promised to call.”

            Maybe the Masters had learned something about maintaining human relationships. Or at least pretending to. “That’s good.”

            “He sounded—strange. Like he’s sick or something? But it was good to hear his voice. Thank you.”

            “I hope he’s well,” I said. Pelz’s father hung up.

            “Coming to bed?” Rachel finished her beer and stood up.

            “Yeah.” I got up too. I needed a shower and sleep. Maybe not in that order. But I looked over at the window that faced the street.

            The night was dark, cloudy. The street was quiet. We were safe.

But I knew they were out there. And I knew they weren’t finished.

# # #